Side By Side
by Morbidsnowbeast
Summary: Picks up from s03ep22 The Departed. Damon/Elena, Klaus/Caroline. Elena certainly died after the fall from Wickery Bridge, but it's been six months Upstairs for her instead of a path of vampirism. How will everyone react to the new Elena, since it's only been a few hours since they mourned her loss? And how will Elena's great Change affect her life now that danger is imminent?


Disclaimer: I own nothing. Hereafter, every chapter of Side By Side, by penname morbidsnowbeast, shall be known as CW and Plec property.

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Air pressure. That was the first thing she felt. It was so unbelievably heavy. When she gasped her first breath back on Earth, Elena could feel it fill her, the pressure making her want to burst. It was the oddest tickle, the strain of feeling her body filter out the toxins she had lived a lifetime inhaling with no problem. But now the introduction of greenhouse chemicals into the air she gulped down was so difficult to process.

The next thing she felt was the table underneath her. The cold metal had always been something unpleasant to feel in her human years, but this was something different. She heaved forward, and felt the hard surface pushing her vertebrae in the most awkward angles with the lack of forgiveness of steel. Her movement shot pain and feeling back into her body with the pattern of lightning and the speed of fear.

To Elena, it had been a period of time since she had felt anything, much less the slight discomforts that humans felt at any given moment. The slight feeling of minimal circulation to a foot, the itch of a few flakes of dry skin peeling from skin, hell, the sheer weight of clothing alone- these things have been around for as long as she could remember yet always went unnoticed. But now Elena could feel the pain and frustration of every bit of them. Ultrasensitivity was one thing she was warned about by coming back home, but she hadn't been able to comprehend that at the time. She was so eager to feel alive again that she didn't think of the stimulation one sense brought to a body, much less all of them.

She knew where she was. She had spent hours looking at this moment. To everyone on Earth, it was just a second, but she was free to look at it anytime. In her mind she had walked around the town, memorizing each aspect, seeing everything. If she'd stayed Upstairs longer, she could have sculpted the exact stance everyone was in when she would be alive again. And somehow, it wasn't quite the same as soon as it was happening. When she inspected this second, she had felt such a detachment that was well experienced Upstairs that changed how everything seemed. The pain on Stefan's face, the confusion Damon was experiencing, the loss that was overwhelming Jeremy- these feelings she knew but had been seen in a clinical way when she was gone that she hadn't really understood them as she did the moment of that first breath.

Elena jerked herself up, forcing herself to not grit her teeth as her hip bone ground into the table. The images of the room flooded her brain as her eyes glanced around to keep up with the unfamiliar information. She had thought about how she was going to describe where she'd been, what she'd done and how everything felt to her- but it seemed hard to understand herself and she'd lived through it. But Upstairs there was no feeling- she wasn't fully alive or dead, so there was no need to breathe. She could stand and walk and sit, but it felt like the world moved around her rather than she around it. Looking back, she realized she couldn't tell anyone what kind of ground she had stood on- she'd never felt how soft or hard it was and had never thought to look. "No pain" was a phrase she'd heard often when anyone had tried to describe Upstairs while she was human (as if humans or vampires could begin to comprehend), but it didn't come close to how it felt. There was definitely no pain, but unless Elena wanted or needed to feel any object or even air around her, she wouldn't.

It took some difficulty, but Elena was finally able to steady her gaze and get her eyes to focus rather than drink up every bit of light and shadow in the room with no regard for control. She was able to stare at a group of machines that had been grouped together. They were all powered down, probably broken, and Elena had known them well from her time watching this moment. There was something beautiful about the machines that she hadn't really thought about before. How dead they were.

In her peripherals she could see Stefan's form shifting. She knew he was here, how pained he was, but was surprised he hadn't said something by now. _Though,_ she thought wryly, _I probably look pretty weird, what with my crazy eyes going everywhere. _

"Stefan." She managed to mutter something, but it sounded awkward to her. She couldn't decide if it was the tingling in her vocal cords that she hadn't felt in forever, or the feeling of her tongue dancing behind her teeth as she tickled his name. And though she wasn't looking directly at him (now the tiles on the floor were fascinating), his sharp intake of breath gave her some comfort. It splashed through her body and helped to dull the friction in this world she had returned to.

"Elena." His voice thundered through her ears as she remembered what hearing felt like. She had, of course, been able to talk to the others Upstairs, but without a tangible body and by transit body parts she had forgotten what it was like to feel her senses process. When a word was spoken, or a sight was seen, it just was.

Her eyes darted to him as he continued to speak. "How do you feel?"

_What a strange question, _she thought, _how do I answer that exactly?_

She'd planned how to tell the others, and knew about the danger they were in and knew what she'd have to do, but in this moment it was such a difficult task to not waste precious time blurting everything out to him right then. Despite her desire to share everything with him, Elena knew now wasn't the time and had to force down the words and feelings and experiences she was still trying to understand. "Fine."

Stefan blinked. "Elena, do you know what happened?"

_Oh, if only _you_ knew what happened._ "Yes."

"So you understand what you are?" He pulled something from inside his jacket she hadn't been able to see before. A blood bag.

It was hard not to giggle at this. "I'm not a vampire, Stefan." She'd managed to sit straight up, her legs dangling with a foot to spare before touching the ground. Her toes squished in her sneakers that were still wet. Between the blood bag and the knowledge her feet would probably smell later, she felt the strong desire to grimace at the ick factor.

Stefan cocked his head, and she could tell he was having a difficult time breaking the news. It was strange though, she being so familiar with the transition from vampire to human, and now having it directed at her. To have the sad eyes turned to her, the damning words spoken in her ear. She couldn't quite find the words to quickly sum up how, despite all evidence to the contrary, she was not a vampire. "I know it must be very hard to understand when you first wake up, but when Matt's truck ran off Wickery Bridge, you died. I was able to save him like you wanted me to, but when- when I came back for you-" He choked, and Elena felt a pang of sympathy for him. The emotion that he was clearly trying to suppress for sake of being strong for her had clearly overwhelmed him.

It was difficult though, coming from her state of detachment and her own new life to come back to this in such a heavy environment. It's a common mistake to come across inappropriately, she had been told, when first arriving back home, especially when in that moment every person around you was mourning. One couldn't just be bouncing around all over the place with news of Upstairs when everyone was in such a state of loss. But there was danger headed their way, and Elena was the only one who could give them a head start.

"Stefan," she prodded gently, "I know what you're thinking. I was dead. But please, we don't have a lot of time, you have to trust me. I am not a vampire."

The door opened, and a flash of artificial light poured into the room, shrinking Elena's eyes to a squint as she made out Damon's form. He let the door fall shut behind him and by the time she could see properly again he was beside her. For some reason it bothered her more, his expression filled with regret rather than Stefan's, which was remorseful. Stefan was trying to deal with the dice as they lay, while Damon was clearly trying to figure out every way he could have prevented it. He didn't say a word, just took in her figure as disbelieving as she was when she first went Upstairs.

A beat passed, and Elena wasn't sure who was going to speak first. She glanced back and forth between the two of them, until Stefan decided to continue. "Everyone feels this way when it first happens. You had Damon's blood in your system when you died. Now, I understand this is a lot to take in but we have to talk about decisions, Elena. We've got to get you home through a hospital full of bleeding patients and we have to make sure you'll be okay."

At this point it was hard to not get frustrated at the task set ahead of her. They had thirty eight minutes before the Council stormed into the hospital to find Meredith, Elena realized as she stole a look at the analog clock on the wall behind Stefan. She needed to get her point across.

Damon found his voice. "Elena, my blood got into your system entirely unintentionally, I wouldn't want you to think-"

"I know. It's okay. But seriously," she tried to lay more urgency into her voice without coming across as stressed as she was, "something very bad is going to happen if we don't get out of here now. I really don't have time to explain. You guys just have to trust me. I'm not a vampire. We need to leave."

Stefan, of course, instantly had concerns. "Any new vampire is going to be feeling strangely, Elena, and sometimes have dreams before they wake up that tell them to do something. You may be having a blood craving that's making you feel like you need to go somewhere specifically. Everyone reacts differently- us leaving this room would be insanely dangerous. You could lose control as soon as we get around the corner and go completely nuts on somebody."

Elena jumped off the table, feeling the weight of the world pushing up through her legs as she stood. A bit wobbly, but nonetheless she had been able to get centered a lot better than other people coming back from Upstairs. Or so she heard. "For the last time, I am asking that you accept this because we are losing tons of time, and I need to talk to Meredith. We don't have the luxury right now of standing around arguing about this. We need to get out and if you can't believe that I'm not a vampire, just remember that between the two of you, you are older and stronger and can at least get me to the house."

Damon smirked. "An appeal to my manly sense of strength always works for me."

"Damon, you can't be serious. We have to keep her in here at least until she understands what she is. If she isn't aware of what she is, how can we control her from running off like Vicki did? If I remember correctly, you were the one responsible for that complete disaster."

"Stop." It took a lot of motivation for Elena to not allow her frustration come off as irritation at them, but another glance at the clock revealed that they now had thirty five minutes to get Meredith to safety and to make sure the council wasn't on to the three of them in the process. "We have to go now. I am going to go regardless, and would very much like the two of you to help. I assure you, I am not a vampire."

Stefan clearly had gotten quite frustrated himself. "Elena, you have to accept this or you're going to make the wrong decision. How do you explain you being dead, with Damon's blood in your system, and now, poof- you're alive. You didn't drink any tonic, we had no spell protecting you. There is no other explanation."

"Yes, there is, Stefan. I know that this is hard to hear, and I didn't want to talk about it now while time is so limited. So you need to hear this and let me go before we're too late, okay?" He nodded, and Elena could tell he still wasn't anywhere near on board but this was the best she could do, given the circumstances. "Damon?"

"I'm listening." His face had turned all business. She took some solace in that his stern expression was going to help her get things done, at the very least.

_Here goes._

"I'm an angel."

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**A/N: Hello everyone! It's been a long, long time since I've written ANYthing, much less fic, so if my gears still need a bit of oiling I'm sorry! I hope to get warmed up after a few chapters and will probably go back and edit the first few when I feel a bit more confident in my ability. Please, feel free to review and let me know what you think. I'd like to have some feedback just to know if I should continue that burning desire to write fanfic or not! :D**

**I've got a definitive view of where I'd like this story to go. I plan for it to be pretty lengthy, with a good healthy dose of angst and adventure before I allow my shipper heart to go mad with fluff. So stick around and I hope to get a good story going. Despite the content of the story, I'm still sticking closer to the show more than the books, so I apologize if the books are more your thang. **

**And since nothing annoys me more in this world than 100k+ stories that are mostly A/Ns, save for this one and a few clarifying ones if needed, I'd like to keep them to a minimum. Reviewers will be showcased on my profile, and I will personally PM those who I'd love to talk to (spoiler: all of you).**


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